The Depths of Winter
by automaton14
Summary: Harry's choice to cast the killing curse instead of a disarming charm has distanced him from the society for which he fought. Disappointed and disillusioned, he secludes himself in order to search for answers to his disturbing dreams. In a might-makes-right world, is it wrong to seek power for the right reasons? Post-Hogwarts, MOD!Harry, MCU eventually, but not yet.


The sun didn't rise so much as the world just wasn't dark anymore. It'd been overcast for about seven years now, though Harry had yet to notice. Even though Riddle was dead, for good this time, Harry's world had yet to lighten up. Perhaps he'd just seen too much blood and death. He couldn't get his friend's faces out of his mind - their reaction to his choice of spell to end Riddle. It was a tactically sound choice, using the killing curse. Voldemort had wandless magic and was able to create shields with just a wave of his hand. The killing curse couldn't be shielded against. The incantation was a single syllable more. The man had deserved it. But their faces. Their eyes held understanding, sympathy, and righteous judgement.

 _Well, fuck them._ The Elder Wand felt amazing in his hand. It took only a thought to transfigure a replica and summon the stone. He'd earned the artifacts. He lied to his friends, who would lie to others for him, and wouldn't be facing the covetous hearts of smaller men. Power wasn't what he'd set out for, but it was what he'd found. He'd looked for family and found a country searching for a scapegoat and a hero. He'd found bigotry instead of acceptance, and a world built on the backs of slave labor and the impoverished. So he'd take the power because even if it wasn't what he'd wanted it was useful. And still the world was gray.

He left his friends and his family to deal with the aftermath, his part was done. Grimmauld Place was calling to him, Sirius's things and Kreacher and a bed where no one would find him. Peace, quiet and no judgement.

* * *

Harry's dreams had become disturbing of late. Dreams of a vast emptiness and a faceless figure. Or was it that the figure had too many faces? The figure was always bare, nude without nakedness. He tried to speak with the figure, but the figure could not speak back. Frustrated, he lashed out at the figure, but the figure seemed unable to fight back. Harry feverishly devoured the Black family library, only to find dark magics and a lack of answers. He found that the Dark Arts were not only various spells classified as dark, a label with a disappointing lack of definition, but also a way of wielding magic. Instead of clinical wand movements and incantations, it was passionate, and emotion driven. Instead of caution, the dark arts dared. Harry found learning them easy. He found his silent casting and motionless casting came easier when fueling them with his emotions. He found the abstraction involved in rituals to be freeing, and the power, oh the power, it filled him and rushed through his veins. And yet, he found no answers.

Library exhausted, he turned to his poor skills in the mind arts. He powered through elf-purchased books on occlumency and couldn't get enough of legilimency. The haunting dreams became clearer, more lucid, until, one day, he was completely himself facing the figure with too many faces. Or was the figure's face just changing? Was he dreaming of a metamorph? Tonks?

He must have spoken the word out loud, for he saw surprise on the figure's face(s), and, to his wonderment, Tonks appeared next to him.

"Wotcher, Harry! Oh shit, what are you doing?" He'd forgotten her cheerfulness, which makes the panic in her voice after her greeting more than a little concerning. Frowning, he faced her and gestured to the faceless figure and quickly explained the situation.

"I'm dreaming, I still have the Resurrection Stone and accidently called you. I thought the person with the shifting face might be a metamorph, and you're the only one I know, so here you are. I have no idea what's going on and have no desire to talk to anyone living about it. Wotcher."

Tonk's face had been growing more and more concerned as he spoke. "Harry, there's no easy way to say this. That's Death," she explained as if talking to a child. Or someone who's about to freak out in a rather precarious situation.

Harry stared at the being. _I suppose Tonks would know, considering the whole being dead thing she has going on._ Thinking it through out loud, Harry mused, "I suppose they're naked because I have their cloak. Death's never spoken a word, so I guess that has something to do with the Hallows, too."

It was a conundrum, Harry had the Hallows, he liked their power, the feeling the of the magic in them. But Death shouldn't be so... so weak. And Harry was confident that holding on the what appeared to be metaphorical aspects of Death's metaphysical manifestation would come back to bite him in the ass, as almost everything always did. One couldn't stop death. It just was. It came for everyone, even Nicholas Flamel could attest to that, all things considered. The thing was, nothing is free, and Harry wouldn't return the Hallows without getting something out of it.

"Death, I have your shit. I don't know what the Peverell's did to get it, but I have your shit, and supposedly I'm your 'master.' I like the Hallows, I like the magic in them and the way it interacts with mine. I like the power they give me. I like all of it. If I return them to you, will you give- no, no, I demand adequate compensation. You would no longer have a master, or be in danger of ever having a master again, you wouldn't be naked, which I'm sure is less than ideal for you, and pretty much anything you do is, by definition, legendary, which by definition of having a personification, is sure to stroke your ego. You get your shit, your freedom, and I get cool death-related power and everyone is happy."

Tonks wasn't happy. Tonks was anxious, and announced it. "Harry, this is extortion. You're extorting Death. This is not okay. Please don't do this, nothing good can come of it." Her voice sped up as she spoke, and her pitch rose higher and higher. As brave as she was in life, she had never been party to the extortion of a fact of existence. Understandably, she was _rather_ uncomfortable with the idea. And it showed, in her shifting stance and nervous tones.

Death stared at Harry with an unreadable expression. Or was it that Death stared at Harry with every expression. Harry couldn't tell. In the end, Death's face(s) was / were functionally unreadable, as it/they ever was/were. Death, eventually, nodded.

Uncertain about the ambiguity of the nod, Harry asked, "For clarification, do you agree to my conditions?" At Death's second nod, Harry asked, "Okay, can we do this here or do I have to call you when I wake up or something?"

Death nodded a third time, at which point Harry gave up and decided to just give the Hallows again after he woke up if he still had them. Reaching inside himself for that the bit of magic in him that resonated with the Hallows, he called them to him. As they had ever since he had united them, the Hallows materialized on his person with a bit of gray smoke. Harry pulled off the cloak and handed it to Death, who shrugged on the rapidly darkening silvery mass. Already, Death looked more comfortable, as much as unreadable expressions and postures could be read. Harry pulled the ring off and handed it over to Death, who promptly swallowed it, and, with a voice like a thousand needles in his heart, finally spoke, "You have my gratitude." As Death grasped the final Hallow Harry handed over, it lengthened and thickened into the iconic scythe of which legends spoke.

Harry nervously watched as Death stepped closer and said, "Three was the number of items you gave me, and so, three are the rewards I will give you. You clothed me so that I may feel warmth and comfort when you had the ability to withold them from me. That power you held over me, I now give you over others. You will take their warmth of heart, mind, body, and soul as you so desire." Harry screamed with agony as he felt the depths of winter radiate throughout his body and magic as Death plunged its hand into Harry's chest and clenched its fist around his heart. His already pale skin became paler, more translucent, and veins turned as bright a blue as if glacial waters ran through him rather than blood.

Harry would have dropped to his knees but for the lack of gravity and floor. Tonks fearfully held back, eyes wide and attempting to muffle her sobbing. Death's voice cracked out again, "You gave voice to one who was silent, so that I might form connections with others, and, in so doing, gave up your last connection to those you had lost. I give you the ability to connect with others in a way no one else can, connections of mind, body, heart and soul, to share what you wish and take that which you desire, well beyond the limits of any legilimency or occlumency." Harry screamed again as Death seized his head, fingers splayed, and drove its thumbs into Harry's eyes. Harry felt his senses expanding well into the emptiness surrounding them. He could feel Tonks' pleas for Death to stop, Death's implacable, sadistic and twisted gratitude, and the absolute emptiness of the void they were in. When Death withdrew his thumbs from Harry's eyes and hands from his head, Harry's eyes were gone. In their place were solid black orbs, no green iris, no pupil, no whites of his eyes, just the same darkness of the void that surrounded them.

Harry was sobbing, "Please, no more, no-"

Death spoke over him, "I was powerless, and you gave me power. I was weaponless, and you gave me the strongest weapon you had. I could do nothing, and you gave me agency. As Odin is said to have drunk from Mimir's Well for magic and wisdom, you will drink from mine and gain the same." And with that, Death slit one wrist with scythe that reaps souls, rested the scythe in the crook of his arm and grasped Harry's face with one hand while forcing its wrist roughly in Harry's mouth. Harry's mouth filled with Death's blood as he fought not swallow, but he couldn't breathe. He was losing in this struggle, he realized, as black blood poured into his mouth and forced its way down his throat, tasting of despair, rot, and the end of things. When Harry could swallow no more of the thick substance, it still flooded in. He began to panic, started screaming, and the sickly fluid still flowed down his throat and into his lungs. He couldn't breathe. Blackened blood was pouring out his nose. Spots of darkness bloomed in his vision, partially obscuring Death's sneering face. They continued to grow until he couldn't see anymore, and then everything became distant and he passed out.


End file.
